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Invite Speaker/ Teacher on Eco-Judaism

Action Description:

The Shalom Center has invited a number of especially knowledgeable people on varied aspects of Eco-Judaism to join a list of possible speakers, teachers, and guides who are available for synagogues, Hillels, Jewish schools, interfaith institutions, and environmental prganizations.

The list below is made up of those who said Yes.

We encourage our readers to invite any of the list below to your own congregation or organization. Please note that inviting Rabbi Arthur Waskow will be especially helpful to the work of The Shalom Center

Arrangements for travel costs, honoraria, etc., will be made between you and those you invite, on an individual basis.

We realize that at this time of year many of us are now on retreats, in study sessions, on vacation, etc. Yet we hope many of us can plan for these visiting teachers.

This September, there will be great interest in the arena of religious thought and action about the climate crisis, as Pope Francis visits the United States (September 22-27) and speaks out on these issues. Many Americcans are very likely to want to know how Jewish tradition and the Jewish community speak on these urgent matters.

As part of that broad interest, the themes of the High Holy Days and Sukkot will speak to the climate crisis, and their timing will bring them to the fore close to the swell of interest in the Pope's visit.

Background Information:

Available Speakers/ Teachers on Eco-Judaism:

Rabbi Katy Z. Allen : rabbikza@verizon.net 508-358-5996 President,(Boston) Jewish Climate Action Network, www.jewishclimate.org Facilitator, One Earth Collaborative, www.oneearth.today Rabbi, Ma'yan Tikvah - A Wellspring of Hope, www.mayantikvah.org She is a board certified chaplain and the co-convener and president of the Boston-area Jewish Climate Action Network. She considers herself a Nature Chaplain and blogs on matters of Torah, spirit, and Earth at www.mayantikvah.blogspot.com Topics: Cultivating Faith and Hope in an Age of Climate Crisis; Building the Jewish Climate Action Network: Notes from the Field; A Jewish Foundation for Responding to Climate Crisis

Rabbi Ellen Bernstein ellen.bernstein@comcast.net founded Shomrei Adamah, the first national Jewish environmental organization in 1988. Books: The Splendor of Creation and Ecology and the Jewish Spirit. She is the rabbi at Hampshire College. To learn more, please visit www.ellenbernstein.org

Rabbi Michael M. Cohen aravakolot@yahoo.com Member of the founding faculty. Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, 1996. He also co-established the Green Zionist Alliance, the first environmental Zionist party for the World Zionist Congress: Arava Power Company, the first commercial solar energy company in Israel. Rabbi emeritus, Israel Congregation in Manchester Center, Vermont. Teaches conflict resolution at the Center for the Advancement of Public Action of Bennington College. Author of numerous articles on Judaism, the environment, and the Middle East Peace Process, as well as author of Einstein's Rabbi: A Tale of Science and the Soul. Topics: Why care of the environment is a Zionist imperative, The Environment as a Bridge to Peace in the Middle East: The Arava Institute as a Case Study, Jewish environmental values.

Rabbi Peter Knobel PKnobel@bethemet.org 847-869-4230 Rabbi Emeritus, Beth Emet the Free Synagogue. Evanston, Il; Former President, Central Conference of American Rabbis. Topics: Theology of Stewardship; Jewish Concept of Creation and the Conflict between Mastery and Preservation; The Siddur As A Guide to Our Relationship to the Environment; Can I have an I-Thou Relationship with a Tree?; Han Jonas and Abraham Joshua Heschel Lead the Way; Global Warming & Nuclear Weapons The End of Noah’s Rainbow; What Do TaNaKh and the Rabbis Say about Our Relationship to Nature; The Environmental Ethics—Feed the Hungry, Clothe the Naked

Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, Director of Social Justice Organizing Program at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, MLiebling@rrc.edu, 215-913-8363, I have been thinking, teaching, praying, meditating, organizing and acting about and on Jewish teachings concerning our relation to the Earth for over 30 years. I have recently taught a course, Rabbi As Environmental Activist. Among other topics I can address are: Lessons and Values We Learn from Shmita; Jewish Values Pertaining to Climate Change; Ecotheology.

Rabbi David Seidenberg, rebduvid86@gmail.com neohasid.org, author of Kabbalah and Ecology:: God's Image in the More-Than-Human World (Cambridge Univ Press, 2015). His book has been called "the standard by which all new work will be measured." David's teaching focuses on embodied Torah, dance, spirituality, and music, and on Maimonides, Buber, Talmud, Kabbalah, Hasidism and the indigenous meaning of Torah.

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